Music Box
by Ramela
Summary: A small story of a girl and her grandmother. Sometimes second chances might not be what we always need, even if they're what we desire.


**Music Box**

"Hey again, it's me." I called out with a small grin as I shut the door behind me. I'd hear a pleasantly familiar voice reply happily as soon as I enter the living room across the hall, and would turn giddy, feeling much like a 12 year old again.

"Hello dear, how was your day?" It was grandmother, lying in the bed which faced the wall with a pretty yet plain painting of fruits adorning it. My grin turned into a full blown smile, mirroring the elder woman's. Even through her weariness, her smile held warmth anyone would revel in when graced with her presence.

Before I got to reply, a continuous disembodied beeping noise, somehow familiar, caught my attention, though it was so low, had it not been for my sharp hearing, it would have skipped my notice. I barely shook my head, as if to get rid off the tiny bout of annoyance and picked up where I had left.

"Oh you know, same old same old. My grades are improving alright, and I'm somehow managing the rest without become a full time insomniac." I intoned sarcastically, a hint of playfulness coloring my tone. Grandmother laughed, her worn body, lying on the bed, shaking with tremors of mirth.

"I'm sure you do much better than you say, I should know; modesty runs in our side of the family. She stated knowingly, her wise grin holding a hint of pride.

I crossed my arms and looked at her with thinly veiled amusement

"Is that so? That's what mum kept telling me about her side. I'd love to see you both brag again by which side's more modest" I drawled on, feigning fascination, as we dissolved into a fit of giggles immediately after.

As soon as she stopped laughing, the smile faded from her face and a serious glint appeared in her eyes, serving to sober my attitude when I noticed it.

It's been quite a while since you've visited, hasn't it?" Her voice, holding the slightest reprimand, echoed in the small room, and I quieted as I plopped down on the dusty sofa and looked down at my lap, wringing my hands together nervously; one of the habits I've acquired when feeling uncomfortable or particularly twitchy. At least I didn't stutter as much as I had used to, not that Grandma would know of that particular tidbit.

"Uhhhm I know... I mean it's complicated and all... Not really. Okay I-I actually don't know. I'm sorry." I ramble while jumbling my words, not having the slightest clue on how I could reply to the statement I wondered about every single day, the guilt that often accompanied it consuming me whole.

"Calm down dear, there's no need to rush." The fair blond haired woman interrupted soothingly. "Oh, I know! How about you go get some of those cookies from the kitchen; the ones in the blue box? I know how much you adore them."

'You mean the box that's now filled to the brim with medication and needles instead right?' I bit my tongue to keep from replying bitterly as I plastered a forced smile on my face.

"It's okay; I'm not really hungry anyway."

"That's a pity. Had I been able to get out of bed I would have at least made you your favorite tea." She replied with slight melancholy, which I understood wholeheartedly; it's been years since I've ever seen her get out of bed, walk, or much less stretch her legs, due to one mistake those damnable doctors had made, but enough about that. Having Grandmother here is a virtue in itself that I shouldn't waste with deprecating thoughts.

"Do you want anything to eat? I know you love tea and a good cheese sandwich with crackers" I knew then it was a futile thing to ask, downright stupid even, but the habit was there anyway. I looked away, cheeks red in embarrassment.

Grandmother merely gave a soft chuckle, covering it with her pale flimsy hand. A tube, protruding from its bulging green vein, traced back to the rod that supplied her medication 24/7, perhaps literally acting as her life line I realized quite humorously with a slight dour undertone that swam at the surface of my thoughts.

Strangely enough, along my line of thinking, the beeping noise got louder and I looked around confusedly, then back to Grandmother who acted in a perfectly mundane fashion.

'Am I the only one hearing this? Gosh, I must be going mad' the guess wouldn't be too far off target; I was after all residing near an asylum. I suppressed a chuckle, digressing from my straying thoughts.

After shrugging it off, I looked back at her seeing as she was asking me something.

"How's your brother?"

I snorted while she cocked her eyebrow in amusement.

"Oblivious as ever. I've still got a hard time believing he's a teenager now."

"I suppose you could at least handle him better now, hmm?"

I genuinely grinned whilst recalling how much closer we've gotten the past few months and i nodded at the elderly woman eagerly.

"You know he reminds me a lot of you, not just physically with his blonde hair and green eyes, which by the way leads to hilarious responses when people find out we're related, and siblings none-the-less!"

"I'd surmised that already, considering you're a carbon copy of your father."

"Oh geez don't even get me started, if I had a dollar every time people told me that I'd be a millionaire by now." I snorted and flailed my hands around with as much grace as a stampeding hippo. "In all seriousness though you've both got hearts of gold, not literally though, because if that actually happened the blood couldn't actually circulate in the body so he'd be dead and - I'm rambling again aren't I?" I laughed and nervously ran a hand through my hair.

'I'm starting to think this wasn't one of my best ideas- All I'm doing is embarrassing myself!'

Grandmother salvaged some of my dignity by remaining quiet, covering her silent laughter with her hand. After calming down, she seemed to regard me with wise eyes, aged from time and consequences. Why is she looking at me like that? Frankly, it unnerved me.

"Look, I-I have no idea how to deal with this or even what to talk to you about, I 'm not sure how I've even coped for the past several years and came out mildly sane-"

' I'm not sure what I'm even saying.'

The beeping now rose in volume to a point where I could barely hear myself think, so I shook my head left and right, hoping to somehow block out the unbearable noise off to no avail.

I gritted my teeth to hold back a growl of frustration, and my head snapped up when I heard Grandmother calling out to me worriedly.

"I can't even think properly with this stupid beep noise that keeps getting higher and higher!" I screwed my ears and eyes shut, yelling to the ceiling, when the noise suddenly came to a screeching halt, a deafening silence replacing it.

"Wh-what?" I cautiously took one hand away, testing the waters, and then cautiously opened one eye after the other, resisting the urge to shut them closed again; when had the room become so bright? I turned my head sideways to the old woman, perplexed.

"D-did… did you stop that?" I muttered, still ever confused, and the slightest bit afraid.

"What is it that you wanted to talk to me about dear? You know you can always come to me whenever you want to." She seemed to ignore my previous question, but due to my inner turmoil it had escaped my notice.

'What about your troubles then?' that same feeling of guilt I'm so used to reared its ugly head, but I managed to keep it in check, at least for this time.

"That's the problem! I knew I could have, no, should have visited more often to see you and make you perhaps happier, but for all my cowardice I simply didn't." my voice faded at the last few words as I looked down at my hands, and for the first time in forever, I felt like that helpless child again, the one that had no answer to give to her little brother or did nothing but cry pitifully. Thankfully, I wasn't much of a crier now or the whole ordeal would have turned into a sob fest which could turn messy and awkward especially since there are no tissues in the room.

"I… don't even know what to say anymore; I didn't know then, and neither do I now." I scoffed and brought my knees up to my chest.

"How about then…" I heard her grunt lightly as she sat up and felt her eyes boring into my head for a while before she turned her head away, opting instead to stare at the wall. Had I looked up, I'd have seen her staring at the wall with such interest it was as if that plain white, slightly musty wall held a cure to cancer. I heard her inhale to speak through her labored breathing after the minute action of sitting up that had exhausted her so.

" Instead of talking, try to listen…" grandmother's voice echoed slightly in the room that seemed so very big, and made me feel so very small.

Her voice though receded in anticipation for something- and as if on cue, the light sounds of a music box floated through the air, and raising in volume so very lightly it seemed like forever until I could discern the melody the set of notes weaved through.

My eyes widened in recognition and, as if a lightning current passed through me, I shot up from the cold floor tiles and walked quickly, if not outright sprinted to the closet facing the sitting room and opened it.

The onslaught of dust accompanied with the painfully familiar smell of grandmother's perfume on her old sewing kit and the faintest smell of coffee, probably from the bag of fresh coffee beans grandfather had once bought from Brazil, assaulted my senses and overwhelmed me. Meanwhile the melody only increased in volume, and this snapped me out of my daze to search for the source of the melancholic melody with renewed vigor: the music box she had given me once. That's where it came from. I'm sure of it.

I frantically shifted through the old rusty belongings with ease from doing so many times on past nights and evenings, but too scared to stay alone in the dark abandoned hallway for too long.

"Why can't I find it?" I yelled out to grandma, my voice rise an octave as I began to turn hysterical. I couldn't lose it again, not after getting so close!

I realized my vision was blurring, and hastily wiped away tears of frustration with the sleeve of my shirt, my cheeks now probably flushed. It was then I heard the melody distorting and that insufferable beep noise ringing in my ears along with it; this time though, an odd noise of feet shuffling and voices mixed together to create an orchestra of shattered sounds. I was inwardly startled when one of the voices, a rough male one, nearly outright yelled in frustration and after seconds of silence in the midst of the beeping, spoke in a defeated tone of voice that barely seemed to hold it together.

'I'm calling it. Time of death 2:30'

Time froze as I ceased breathing, and my heart skipped a couple of beats.

'Wh-what did I just hear?' My palms, now turning sweaty, released the antique clock frozen in its own time, my mind lacking any response to the loud, destructive crash that followed. All those noises that replayed around me like a broken record receded slightly as I clearly heard a switch going off, and the monotonous beeping ceased.

'Oh.' It was then that realization washed over me like a tidal wave.

My knees buckled and my stomach churned ferociously as one hand clutched at my chest and gripped the shirt's fabric tightly, trying the calm down my heart that beat something fierce, while the other hand shakily found the wall in order to keep my body from collapsing.

The noises and sounds stopped bothering me then, and blended in with my thoughts.

I blinked repeatedly to adjust to how impossibly illuminated the whole room had become in a moment. That moment of clarity though was all it took for me to understand, and get to the bottom of the cacophony of noises that caused a raging storm inside of me I didn't know I was aching to let go of. That single moment finally revealed the lucidity I've been longing to acquire since… well, forever.

I was about to turn around to Grandma so impossibly liberated it felt like the last few minutes hadn't even occurred, when the noise of glass cracking under my foot caught my attention.

"Huh…" I looked down curiously at the clock, irrevocably disassembled beyond recognition, and I knelt down to pick up the shattered pieces with the utmost care, lightly humming the melody that once haunted me while it still kept playing in my head.

A thought came to me as I softly scoffed, gently smiling.

"After all this I still couldn't find your music box; you'd think it never existed." I spoke aloud and snorted, laughing slightly and knowing grandmother would find it rather comical like I did.

"You know, I wonder why I wasted so much time chasing after your possessions to never forget you when I could have just talked to you instea—" I rose up while speaking with rejuvenated joy, eyes already adjusted to the new bright surroundings, and eagerly looked into the room again—Only to find it void of anyone and anything, even the brightness, which now faded back into a lonely beige, leaving only the dusty old couch and the plain painting of dead fruits adorning the wall.

And then there was silence.


End file.
